As rumors about Apple switching to the all-new metallic glass material for a next-generation iPhone continue to persist, one designer has weighed in with own rendition of what the device might look like, both from the inside and the outside – and it’s quite noteworthy.

As you know, Apple obtained a worldwide exclusive license to use Liquidmetal alloy in consumer electronics products. With previous rumors alleging a complete redesign, a Liquidmetal-based iPhone is certainly a plausible proposition…

French designer Antoine Brieux has gone all out creating these gorgeous sixth-generation Liquidmetal iPhone shots, available on his blog.

The use of the new metallic glass alloy would let Apple create a stronger, lighter and thinner iPhone, with a body just 7.9mm thin (versus the 9.3mm profile of the current iPhone 4S).

Gone is the physical home button (though a recent leak hinted otherwise) as Brieux envisions a virtual home button sitting at the screen bottom.

The concept calls for a large 4.5-inch widescreen display that could, however, create issues with third-party apps.

Here’s a shot depicting the Angry Birds on a widescreen Liquidmetal iPhone.

And another one showing a tweaked bezel running around the sides of the device.

Here’s another angle. Notice the virtual home button occupying the extra space gained by blowing up the iPhone’s 3:2 display to a larger 16:9 widescreen appearance.

And yet another angle. Check out the 3.5mm audio jack in the middle.

As for the innards, Brieux thinks the device will be powered by a quad-core A6 chip.

Do check out the source link for more gorgeous shots. Also useful: our coverage so far on Apple’s use of Liquidmetal alloy.

Is this what a Liquidmetal iPhone could look like?

I think it looks business and certainly shows some hallmarks of Apple’s trademark industrial design.

The question is, would Apple really buck its own trend and blow up the iPhone’s display to a whopping 4.5 inches?

Related Topics

Hmmmm. Not bad. The LiquidMetal area that Apple is going into is rather interesting. I do believe they will go along those lines, and if they do decide to increase the screen size, then they will also create helpful tools for App devs to not screw them over and to help transition to the new screen ratio in a more easier way.

http://twitter.com/FabianPVD Fabian B.

You would. Lol.

http://twitter.com/iHamzaDev iHamzaDev

Lol

http://twitter.com/HeitorStifler Heitor Castro 

Amazing!

http://twitter.com/robcalcroft Everything.Rob

many of these concepts are nice but, to me, seem to look similar to android devices made by samsung and the like, they never seem to have the apple ‘look’ but i guess no one but apple can!

Anonymous

I’m truly not trying to start an android apple thing like we have enough of, but the reason why there is resemblance it’s because every other android phone specially samsung looks like the iPhone 3gs/4.

People say that you can only do so much with a rectangle but before the iPhone i used to be able to tell pretty much any phone apart from each other all being rectangles and flip phones, after the iPhone and iPad everyone else seemed to stop being able to create something beautiful.

If the next iPhone looks like an “android” phone (which i doubt it will) it’s simply because every phone out there tries to resemble the iPhone.

Falk M.

Preach it man.

In before the Prada trolls lol.

Kok Hean

A virtual home button?!

http://twitter.com/colinmcgerty Colin S McGerty

Which is only visible when you are already on the home screen. Anyone see a problem here?

Anonymous

i think it´s visible in portrait and hidden in lanscape.

http://twitter.com/BertBoit brett vrellas

Great concept however i believe the corners will be more rounded, in my opinion it makes the phone look better and it seems thats what all the iphones have incooperated

http://twitter.com/IbrahimRIAlBora Ibrahim R.I.AlBoraey

just change headset Jack position, plus you need to put the Sleep button some where, right!
looks so awesome

http://twitter.com/Dongiuj DonGiuj

These concepts are looking nice. I hope it won’t just be all looks though. I’m still waiting to get an iPhone where I don’t have numerous problems with it in the first month.
Maybe apple should hire these people that are coming up with these concepts.

Dan

a lot of concepts have been crap lately, but I like this one

http://twitter.com/tcgehman Thomas C. Gehman

That’s actually the best rendition of a next-gen iPhone I’ve seen yet. The 3.5mm audio jack in the middle is bit weird… I’d like to see the back as well. Liquidmetal does seem possible.

Anonymous

images of the back are on his blog and look damn good!

mordechai eliyahu

if the next iphone looked like this ill leave t-mobile just to get this iphone

Anonymous

This has gotta be the best looking mockup thingy whatever for the new iPhone.. The virtual button I don’t like, but the design is awesome!

http://twitter.com/RilesPro RilesPro

Sign Me Up. Just Give me Web OS UI and this thing has potential.

http://tavlen.tk/ Mathias Lindberg

*dislike*

http://twitter.com/ISEENIT Ruben S.

I wish they will go to a 4.3 screen but I doubt it because the apps are currently done for the current screen iphone and Apple struggles to move them to the ipad. So many apps are use on the ipad that are in the center of the screen (the size of the iphone) for example instagram, flickr and etc…So if the new iphone is 4.3 , would this effect the apps. Are we going to have click 1 1/2 to zoom the app?

http://www.facebook.com/issjakers Jake Padilla

yeah where the headphone jack is located reminds me of samsung kind of feature,

Anonymous

I LOL’ed when I saw the centered headphone jack…

http://tavlen.tk/ Mathias Lindberg

The Android device of iPhones. Look at the home button, LED flash and the headphone jack.

Anonymous

Everything look cool except earphone jack location. Speaker can’t have space if the earphone jack is locate in the middle.

http://www.facebook.com/lucas.kunert Lucas Kunert

Wow, I think that’s a gorgeous concept. The virtual home button is a pretty interesting idea. Not sure how feasible it is or if it’s necessary. Maybe an option to have a gesture-only way and hide it all the time perhaps.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Adnan-Naz/100001271621158 Adnan Naz

its so awesome

http://www.facebook.com/09082171John John Roque Tungul

The 3.5mm jack position is good.

http://www.facebook.com/3aloo1 Ali Bff

its good but the sides mmmm. make more bigger

http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Stone/1498260612 Chris Stone

One of the top nicest concepts

Anonymous

The problems with thinner is that at some point, the 24-pin connector, headphone jack, etc. may need redesigning to fit. The camera’s optics require distance between lens and focal plane. And, thinner means less room for a battery. At some point, the aesthetic benefit of thin, is outweighed by the negatives.

As for a larger screen, at some point, the display won’t be “retina” density. I don’t think Apple will give up its “retina” density, nor do I think Apple will give up its one-handedness. Increasing the screen size and maintaining “retina” density means a new screen resolution, and I’m not convinced Apple is going to do that.

So, I don’t believe the iPhone5 will be thinner nor have a bigger screen than 4″. The new iPad is thicker than the iPad2, and it only has a “retina” display, with doubled GPU cores. A new iPhone with a new chip and a LTE radio, it’s going to need that bigger battery. The iPhone 5S can have the slimmer casing, as the chip and LTE radio mature into less power-hungry iterations.

The RqTect

they have always wanted to use liquidmetal technologies (lqmt)I am buying stock before it goes up